WTU Episode #307 - Samsung Wants AMD

Tuesday, 31 March 2015 04:06
Written by Benjamin "Zeus" Heide

We have just posted up Episode #307 of Weekly Tech Update. In this episode we are discussing that Google is NOT giving up on Google Glass, FutureShop is giving up on retail, and Samsung may want a whole lot of AMD. We have those stories and more so check it out!

ASUStor AS5004T 4-Bay NAS Review

Tuesday, 31 March 2015 02:23
Written by Benjamin "Zeus" Heide

We have just posted up our review of the ASUStor AS5004T 4-Bay NAS. ASUStor ups the power on this unit away from the Intel Atom and give you incredible performance as well as a host of features that you probably won't ever use. This box is made for more that just serving files, media and websites. You can actually play Minecraft, Emulators and more; plus you can stream it all to your favorite mobile device. It's fantastic and not that expensive, but you should read our review for all the details.

We setup a four-drive RAID 5 array and used Automatic Load Balancing to get the most out of the dual Gigabit network connections and when in use at VulcLAN 2015, we managed to connect over 40 people to it and absolutely punished the NAS with some crazy heavy load. It didn't hiccup, flinch or hesitate at all. Performance was top notch. While ASUStor has labeled this drive in their 'Home to Power User' performance tier, it can easily be used in a small business for data backup, central storage, cloud storage, media serving and more.

Pump Up The Bass To Put Out the Fire

Apple Might Be Releasing a New iPhone 6C

Tuesday, 31 March 2015 02:12
Written by Benjamin "Zeus" Heide

If you believe the rumor mill, it loks like Apple just may be releasing a successor to the iPhone 5C (which they cancelled). According to sources, a new "6C" could be coming and arrive in the 4-inch form factor. As much as this could make sense, I don't see Apple doing as they scrapped the 5C due to low sales volumes. Then again, if you bundle one of these with an Apple Watch Sport, it may just make a few extra sales.

According to Future Supplier, the obtained casing looks very similar to what is currently available on the iPhone 5C. The only notable differences that can be seen that suggests this could be the rear housing of a refresh model is the additional speaker perforations on the bottom and an update to the camera flash cutout.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Drop Test

Halo 5 Lands on Xbox One October 27

Tuesday, 31 March 2015 02:06
Written by Benjamin "Zeus" Heide

Good news for all of you Halo fans, Halo 5 is coming. Microsoft has nailed down a date and that date is October 27. This is pretty awesome - if you've got an Xbox One. At this point, the release is only for the Xbox One though. That's right, this October may be the time I have to go out and buy a new Xbox.

Ready for the next installment of Halo? The bad news is you still have a seven-month wait on your hands, but at least it's a concrete release date, right? Right? The news coincides with a new in-game teaser for Halo 5, with Master Chief et al. attempting to emote again --still while cocooned in giant spacesuit helmets.

Apple Watch Edition Customers Treated Like Mr. Moneybags

Monday, 30 March 2015 05:22
Written by Benjamin "Zeus" Heide

If you are thinking of dropping $10,000+ on an Apple Watch Edition device, you will be treated well. If you've got that kind of money, Apple will let you skip the lines and get in to see whoever you want to whenever you want to at their retail stores. It also comes with 24/7 support, private 1-hour appoints and more. If you are dropping $1,500 on their mid-range line, you also get some pretty nice treatment, but if you are trying out any of their Sport models, you'll be treated like the hipster schlub that you probably are. Save more money and they will treat you like you matter.

A Special Station and Chairs: Apple will have a special try-on station for the Apple Watch Edition, including a pair of stools for the customer, an Edition demo kit holding the watches, and a try-on mat like ones found in jewelry stores. Once the customer decides to purchase the Edition, it can be set up in one of two ways: in-store with the same Expert or via a new service called Virtual Personal Setup.

Final Fantasy Update + Fast & Forza

Monday, 30 March 2015 05:16
Written by Benjamin "Zeus" Heide

If you're a fan of Final Fantasy and enjoyed playing as a female character, you may want to reconsider the latest installment. Final Fantasy XV will be all about male champions and while some may consider this discriminatory at first, the creators are trying to get the "boys will be bad boys" thing going on and feel that a girl would compromise the 'bro' feeling the game is going for. You be the judge, but there are more details and more in-depth reasons below.

"Speaking honestly, an all-male party feels almost more approachable for players. Even the presence of one female in the group will change their behaviour, so that they'll act differently. So to give the most natural feeling, to make them feel sincere and honest, having them all the same gender made sense in that way," Tabata said.

On the other side of the highway, the Fast & Furios Forza expansion is a stand-alone game that can be downloaded for free until April 10. If you've got an Xbox 360 or Xbox One, make sure you go and scoop up this game/expansion for free. Again, you don't need any other Forza game to play it. If you've got a console and a few GB of free space, you're good to go.

Amazon Takes Cloud Storage Battle to Next Level

Monday, 30 March 2015 05:07
Written by Benjamin "Zeus" Heide

Amazon has really stepped up their game in the effort to store your data. They have just changed up their online storage plans and now have "unlimited" storage at a very affordable price. Let's take a look at their entry-level package first. For $11.99, you get an infinite number of photos in Cloud Drive, but if you want an infinite number of other files, this will cost you a mere $60 a year. Keep in mind this is their Cloud Drive service - not the S3 service.

The Unlimited Everything Plan is also available for those who need to store a bit more than just a few gigs of files and a lot of photos. This option costs $59.99 a year, but there are no limits on the types of files you can save to Amazon's servers.

ChromeOS Major Makeover

Monday, 30 March 2015 05:02
Written by Benjamin "Zeus" Heide

If you've got a Chromebook or Chromebox, your next update could be pretty awesome. ChromeOS is getting the material design treatment and the result is fantastic. It is a nice fresh taste that was long overdue. ChromeOS, while very funcitonal, looked like something out of the Windows XP era. This brings it into the Windows 10 era and it looks great. It seems to run really well and look even better on my 1080p Tegra K1 Acer Chromebook.

Once you're moved over to the beta, you can submit feedback by hitting Alt + Shift + i. And, if you happen to experience bugs with the beta, you can revert back to the stable version pretty easily - but the caveat is that it will delete all local data, so you'd want to make sure that all of what you need is backed up, or stored in the cloud.